


Butterfly of Doom

by Katsala



Series: A Boy Named Danny Moony [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Gen, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Harry-Lite, Horcruxes, POV Neville Longbottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-08-11 15:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsala/pseuds/Katsala
Summary: but·ter·fly ef·fectnoun(with reference to chaos theory) the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere.(Definition from Oxford)Chapter 1: L’introductionChapter 2: ChrysalisChapter 3: EmergenceChapter 4: Fade to Black





	1. L’introduction

A boy most people thought was eleven and/or dead stood at a bus stop in the heart of Paris. He had a long, thick scar stretching from the middle of his forehead to the outside of his left eyebrow, obscured slightly by his cats-eye glasses and looking nothing like a lightning bolt. He held his father’s hand unabashedly and was attempting to do the same with his mother, though she would occasionally get distracted and float just out of reach. Despite having been a ghost for eleven years, she wasn’t very good at it. 

“No, seriously, did you see that dog? That’s the smallest dog I’ve ever seen, who would even want a dog that small? It looks like a fucking rat!” Dory Moony said, floating above the heads of the crowd of other children and parents. As the miniature Yorkie and it’s owner turned around a corner and out of view, she made an effort to refocus herself, drifting back to intersect her cold, incorporeal hand with her son’s. “John, fix his tie, it’s crooked.”

“I fixed it five minutes ago, dear,” John Moony said mildly, squeezing Danny’s hand. 

Danny sighed. “You don’t have to be so nervous, Mum.”

“Nervous!” Dory snorted. “Who the hell is nervous? You’ll be absolutely fine!” She paused. “But it still isn’t too late to just homeschool you. I am an excellent teacher.”

Danny’s Uncle Al, standing behind them and fervently watching over Danny’s trunk and Marie Curie’s terrarium, snorted. 

Dory whirled around. “And what’s that supposed to mean, old man?”

“Thank Merlin the other parents don’t speak English,” John whispered in Danny’s ear. 

“Le carrosse! Le carrosse!” someone at the edge of the crowd exclaimed, and quickly the cry was repeated. 

Danny didn’t have to strain to see it; the great blue coach was the size of a house, pulled by winged horses as big as elephants, and it dwarfed the other cars in the street. As he watched, it shimmered between it’s true form and that of a normal-sized Parisian bus- a glamour applied for Muggle eyes. 

It was beautiful. 

The doors to the carriage opened to reveal a rather pale woman with a towering white wig and a fluffy silver gown bedecked in pearls. She smiled benevolently at them and violently kicked down an unfolding staircase, which hit the paving stones with a ‘scree!’ In one hand she held a lacy white parasol and in the other was a lengthy roll of parchment. 

“Really,” Dory said, fascinated. 

“Really,” John said, deadpanned. 

“Hello, my darlings students!” She exclaimed in emphatic French. “I am Madame Blancheplume, your History professor! Please, board in an orderly fashion, one at a time, stating your name so I may cross you off the list.”

The line moved quickly after that, and there was almost no time for anything but a hug from his father and an awkward pat on the head from Uncle Al before he stood at the carriage doors. Danny looked up at the Madame, ready to tell her his name, and froze. 

…

“Hey,” said Dory, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “They would be so proud of you right now. We are all so proud of you, no matter what.”

He hugged her quickly and tightly. “Danny Moony,” he told Madame Blancheplume. 

She smiled at him and waved him on, and so, balancing his trunk and his snake’s cage, he ascended the stairs and joined the Beauxbatons ranks. 

“He’s gonna kick so much arse,” Dory said, wiping a tear. 


	2. Chrysalis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have screwed the timeline up a bit, and a few details from the movie slipped in as well, but I did the best I could without rereading the whole book since classes just started back up. In any case, I hope y’all enjoy!

“There she is!” Ron crows. “Hermione! Over here!”

She runs over in a blur of bushy, bouncing brown hair, pulling who Neville assumes to be her parents behind her. She hugs Ron first and Neville harder. 

Her parents, Ian and Michelle, introduce themselves to Neville, Gran and the Weasleys. Dr. Granger winks at Ron and tells him, her voice conspiratorial, “We’ve heard so much about you boys. All good things, I promise.” Mr. Granger laughs and ruffles Hermione’s hair when she blushes. 

“Shall we be on to Flourish and Blotts, then?” Mrs. Weasley says briskly, herding the group towards the bookstore without waiting for an answer. 

Hermione joins Mrs. Weasley in the book signing line while Mr. Granger regales Mr. Weasley with the techniques used to fill a cavity and Neville, Ron, and Ginny play Rock Paper Scissors. Ginny is on a three-round winning streak when a loud, bombastic voice cries out, “Why, is it really The Hermione Granger?”

Ron and Neville exchange a look. Mr. and Dr. Granger exchange one themselves before heading towards the front of the shop, pushing past complaining fans. 

“-the fantastic witch solely responsible for the protection of the Philosopher’s Stone! Why, I scarcely could’ve done better myself-“

“‘Solely’ responsible,” Ron grouses, “what a load of-“

“Watch where that sentence goes, son,” Mr. Weasley says. 

“-and will be leaving with the entire collection of all my books- free of charge!”

“-really a vast exaggeration, Mum-“

“Slipped on a rock my arse, Hermione Jean-“

“Bet your m*dblood friend loved that, Weasley, it’ll probably be the last time a man wants a picture of her-“ Draco Malfoy starts, drifting down the staircase smugly. 

“Neville Longbottom!” Gran cries, startled. “What a splendid left hook!” She turns to a shocked Lucius Malfoy. “That’s my grandson! Oh, your father would be proud!”

The rest of the shopping trip devolves even further, if one could believe it. In the chaos, no one sees a slim black journal slipped into Ginny Weasley’s transfiguration textbook. 

Neville meets up with Ron and Hermione on the train. Ron is begging Ginny to find someone else to sit with, but Neville voices nervously, “She can sit with us. I don’t mind.”

Ron glares but Ginny beams. She sits next to him, leaving Ron and Hermione next to one another. The both of them blush and fall silent, and Neville, trying to break the tension, says, “I hope this will be a normal school year.”

Ron laughs. “A normal year at Hogwarts? You’re mental, mate.” He turns to Hermione. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how did things work out with your parents?”

Hermione groans. “I’ve been grounded. And they’ve made me agree to get braces over the winter break.”

“What are braces?” Ginny asks. 

Hermione spends the rest of the train ride explaining to her horrified audience how Muggles glue bits of wire into children’s mouths to shift the position of their teeth. When they finally arrive at the school they split off from Ginny and ride the carriages, drawn by strange, winged black horses, to the castle. 

Ginny gets Gryffindor in less than ten seconds. The applause from her brothers, and from Neville and Hermione, is deafening. 

It was a lovely, ordinary affair. It would not last. 

“They say that if you stare in the mirrors at Number Four, Privet Drive for long enough, you can see an outline… in the shape of a lightning bolt… on your own forehead!”

“Boo,” Parvati Patil calls from further down the table. “Not scary!”

Seamus looks disappointed, but Ginny, having gone pale, gets up from the table rapidly and heads off with the parting words of, “Lady’s room,” and he perks back up. “Me mam always tells that story on Halloween. Says it’s the best time for Harry Potter stories.”

“I still think the part with the spurting blood is in bad taste,” Hermione sniffs over her bread pudding. She looks over at Neville’s plate, frowns, and passes him another Chelsea bun, which he eats under her watchful eye. 

Ron, on his other side, leans over and whispers, “You really ought to stop telling her when you aren’t hungry, mate. It just makes her worse.”

After dinner they start to head back to the dormitory. The three of them have fallen behind when Neville hears an odd noise. 

SSSSSssssSSSSSSSSSSSSssssss…

Neville pauses on the stairwell. 

“Neville? Are you alright?” Hermione asks.

“Yes… I just thought I’d heard something, is all. It’s probably nothing.”

Ron doubles back, linking arms with Neville and dragging him along. “You’re probably just tired, mate. Cmon, we can play a game of wizard’s chess before we go to bed.”

“I’m no good at chess,” Neville protests. “You always beat me.”

“That’s true, but Hermione won’t play with me, so my options are limited,” Ron jokes. 

That’s when they hear Percy scream.

Neville looks at Hermione. Hermione looks at Ron. Ron looks at Neville. 

They book it towards the sound of Percy’s voice. He hears shouting- “Get away from it, Creevey, be careful!” Turning the corner, they see a wet, dust-colored object hanging from a torch bracket. Neville gasps when he realizes it’s a cat- Mrs. Norris. Above her, smeared on the wall in what he really hopes is red paint, are the words: 

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR… BEWARE

On the other side of the corridor, more students flood in. At the front of the pack is Draco Malfoy, looking as if Christmas has come early. “Enemies of the heir, beware!” he shouts. “You’ll be next, M*dbloods!”

Time feels like it speeds up, the next few months. 

They decide, by unanimous vote, that the Heir must be Draco Malfoy. He’s kind of obviously evil, plus his family has a history of Pureblood supremacy. Also, as Neville points out, it’d have to be someone relatively new to the school, or they’d have already opened the Chamber ages ago. 

With that settled, Hermione begins brewing Polyjuice Potion. She made Neville get Lockhart’s signature to check out the potions book from the restricted section, and chose their brewing spot in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. 

Myrtle turns out to actually be rather pretty, and nice once you get past the sulkiness and the high-pitched wailing. Neville can’t understand why people used to bully her. 

Everything is going splendidly until Colin Creevey gets Petrified. 

He’s found in a corridor after classes, his Muggle camera smoking and spitting. Ginny seems the most upset about it out of Gryffindor House; Ron had always joked about him having a crush on her, always following her around and snapping photographs of her, but now Neville wonders if she liked him back. It’s not his area of expertise, nor Ron’s or Hermione’s,really, so instead Neville orders her a carton of Bernie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans and proofreads her next Herbology essay. She gets an O.

…and then there’s the Dueling Club. 

Neville doesn’t even want to attend the club in the first place, but Hermione drags him along anyway, babbling about different learning environments and latent potential and possibilities of one-on-one instruction. 

Ron is paired up with Malfoy, Neville with Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Hermione with Millicent Bulstrode. Neville isn’t immediately killed, which he marks as a victory. Ron and Malfoy start using spells other than the Disarming Charm, leading to Malfoy summoning a great black snake. Professor Lockhart, while trying to get it under control, accidentally flung it up into the air, where it landed in front of Neville and Justin. Justin positioned himself between Neville and the snake, getting 20 points for Hufflepuff and a trip to the hospital wing for his efforts. Malfoy gets detention from a furious Professor Sprout. 

The next day, a new victim of the monster is found Petrified; Draco Malfoy never made it back to the Slytherin dorms after detention. He’s found in the entrance hall, peering at the glass surface of the Slytherin House point hourglass. 

The Hogwarts Board of Governors suspends Professor Dumbledore from his position of Headmaster the next day, to be replaced by Deputy Headmistress McGonagall. A day after that, Hagrid is attested for the crimes and sent to Azkaban to await his trial. 

“You don’t have to keep researching the monster, you know,” Ron tells Hermione sadly at breakfast. “Hagrid was the Heir and he’s gone. There won’t be any more attacks.”

Hermione slams her book shut. “That’s not the point,” she says huffily. “Besides, you don’t really believe it was Hagrid, do you?”

Ron shrugs. “Not at first. But it’s been months, and there have been no more attacks, even with Dumbledore gone. It doesn’t look good for Hagrid, is all I’m saying.”

Neville, pushing his porridge around with his spoon, remarks, “I would’ve put my money on Lockhart, if I’d thought it was a staff member.”

Ron and Hermione tilt their heads to the right and utter, “Huh,” simultaneously. They exchange a glance before staring up at Lockhart at the teacher’s table, where he’s staring at himself in a compact mirror. 

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense.”

“The attacks didn’t start until he came to Hogwarts.”

“According to that dreadful Rita Skeeter article, the Chamber was opened 50 years ago. He’s too young for it to have been him, but it could’ve been a parent or older relative.”

“Plus, no one could really be as dumb as he is and still have done all those things in his books. Maybe it’s all just an act to make us underestimate him.”

“He was in charge of the Dueling Club before McGonagall replaced him with Flitwick and it was awful… he could’ve been trying to keep the students from actually learning anything. Oh, Neville, I forgot to mention, good job on disarming Parvati last night, you were brilliant.”

The three of them stare up at the teacher’s table again. Lockhart spears a piece of sausage with a fork without looking away from his mirror and accidentally misses his mouth, hitting his nose instead. 

“Or maybe not.”

“Really it is just a lot of conjecture.”

“It was only a theory, anyway, I’m probably totally off.”

“Myrtle?” Neville asks hesitantly, sewing the flood of water coming from her bathroom. He hopes she isn’t too upset; he was planning on gifting her some Durian fruit to ‘eat’ while he did his homework. He figured it would be pungent enough for a ghost to taste without being rotten, but… if she was too upset for their usual Friday meeting, he didn’t know where he was going to get rid of it. 

“Oh, Neville!” Myrtle sobbs, flying through the wall and attempting to cuddle up against his chest. “It was horrible. Somebody threw a book at my head!” She hiccups. His shirt was growing a bit wet. 

“Oh, dear,” he says, patting her on the back. “That’s awful.”

“Oh, Neville, I can’t bear for you to see me like this! Please, just come back next Friday!”

“Of course. Don’t feel bad, it isn’t your fault,” he tells her. 

“I know,” she sniffles. “Oh, will you please take the book with you? I can’t stand to have it in here!”

She guides him towards the slim, soaked black book, which he takes with him along with his homework and the Durian. Back in the Common Room, Ron gives him a pitying look and throws the foul-smelling thing out the window. He offers to do the same with the book, but Neville declines. There’s something odd about it. 

Later that night, when everyone has gone to bed, Neville stares at the ceiling, thinking about the book. He’d gone through it once it dried out and found it completely blank, and now he can’t get the image out of his mind, the great expanses of white taunting him. Crawling out of bed, he retrieves the book. Under the covers, with the curtains around his bed drawn, he writes in it carefully, 

My name is Neville Longbottom.

The ink disappears. 

He tells Ron about it in the morning. He feels as if the book is somehow staring at him even though he hid it in Dean’s sock drawer across the room. Dean never changes his socks, so it should be safe there. 

They meet up with Hermione and Ginny in the common room, where Ginny is trying to braid Hermione’s hair. She dismisses it as probably just some sort of enchantment to keep the contents secret, and suggests putting it in the lost and found. When Ron unsubtly elbows her in the side and nods toward Neville, trying to hide his shaking hands and wide eyes. “We can take it to McGonnagal. She could take a look at it, just to be sure. Ow! Ginny, you’re pulling!”

“Sorry!” Ginny squeaks. 

Less than an hour later, Seamus tracks Dean down while he’s playing Exploding Snap with Ron and Neville beside the lake. “Your stuff’s been trashed, mate! There’s socks everywhere!”

They search everywhere they can think of, but it’s too late. The book is gone. 

A month later, Ron and Neville are waiting for the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch match to start, debating whether or not Primrose Edwardson, the Gryffindor seeker, fancies George, when the professors start herding people out of the stands. Professor McGonnagal, looking flustered in a way Neville has never seen her, makes her way quickly up to where they were sitting. 

“You two- come with me.” She corrals them to the Hospital Wing without another word. 

Hermione, her eyes wide and her hand clutching a small circular mirror, lies perfectly motionless on a bed. Beside her is a curly-haired blonde girl with a Ravenclaw prefect badge, contorted in an odd way as if she has been curled over someone shorter protectively. 

Neville sees red. 

She would’ve wanted them to figure this out, Neville reasons, so they will. They’ll do it for her. Ron steals an empty roll of parchment from Percy and they get organized. 

Fact: Hagrid was once accused of opening the Chamber, but clearly he wasn’t responsible this time, seeing as he was in Azkaban during the last attack. Fact: that leaves their prime suspect as Lockhart. 

Fact: Hermione must’ve had that mirror for a good reason. When comparing her attack to all the others, they discover something odd: all of the victims were found looking at or through a reflective surface. After an unsuccessful attempt to summon a Muggle monster named Bloody Mary, they decide that reflections must ward the creature off rather than be how it travels. That leads to more research, this time into vampires, before they give up on that front and just agree to each carry a polished spoon pilfered from the Great Hall with them at all times. 

Finally, on Friday, Ron grunts and says, “We might as well give up for today, mate. You’ve got your date with Myrtle- we can keep going tomorrow.”

Neville freezes. 

“I was just joking about the dating thing, mate. Mate?”

Neville dives into the pile of old Daily Prophets they’ve accumulated on the floor and comes up with the one with the Rita Skeeter article. “Myrtle!” he cries excitedly. 

“What?! What did you find?!”

“Fifty years ago, a student died… a female student known only as Miss Warren… and she’s the only ghost the right age in the whole castle! It’s been Myrtle all along!”

“…how old is she?”

“She died when she was fourteen.”

“…”

“Don’t be rude!”

“…so she could know what the monster is!”

“We have to go talk to her now!”

They trip over one another in their hurry to get to the bathroom. 

As they close in on Myrtle’s bathroom they suddenly see new writing on the wall under the old message, the wet paint still dripping. The boys draw up short as they read the words:

HER SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER

Ron, seeing the teachers first, pulls Neville into a statue alcove to hide. Soon, though, it’s Neville holding Ron back instead. His eyes fix on Lockhart as the professor heads to his office, spilling vague promises of defeating the monster and saving Ginny to the other unimpressed staff members. “He’s going down,” Ron whispers viciously. 

“Expelliarmus!”

“E-expelliarmus!”

Lockhart, propelled by the force of the spell, crashes against the wall and falls in a heap on the floor. 

“Huh. He was a bit easier to take out than I thought.”

“Maybe if we go through his things we’ll find a clue about where the Chamber is,” Neville suggests. They start digging. 

And digging. 

And digging. 

There’s a lot of fan-mail to sort through. Ron does, however, find something of interest shoved inside a box of chocolates. The pages are a bit worn at the edges and are attached to one another by Spellotape. Flipping to one at random, there’s a picture of a witch with a bit of a hairy chin, x-ed out in light purple ink. The picture is labeled “Anong Aromdeerong: Bandon Banshee.” Another page has a short, balding man, also crossed out, labeled as “Edvin Pärn: Viljandi Vampire.”

“These are all from his book,” Ron says wonderingly. “These must be the people who really defeated those monsters! He is just a fraud after all!” 

They both look at him, still in a heap on the floor. 

“I guess this means he won’t know where the Chamber is,” Neville says. 

“Well, we’ll just have to hope Myrtle knows something. We can’t just give up.” Glancing over Lockhart’s belongings again, he reaches over a loose pile of Lockhart’s books and grabs two compact mirrors. Handing one to Neville, he remarks, “Better than a spoon, I suppose. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Neville! You’re here!” Myrtle swoops down happily from her perch on a stall door. “And you’ve brought Ron, too! I thought Ginny would be joining us,” she said, mood souring, “but she walked right past me while I was in my toilet. She didn’t even say a word!”

Ron inhales sharply. “So the entrance to the Chamber is here?! In the girls’ bathroom?!” He shrugs. “I suppose it’d be the last place I’d look too, if I were Godric Gryffindor.”

“Myrtle, we need to ask you about something very important,” Neville says hurriedly. “Can you tell us about how you died?”

Myrtle looks positively thrilled. “Oh, it was awful. It was right here in this lavatory. I was hiding because Olive Hornby- I’ve told you about her, Neville- had teased me about my glasses. Then I heard someone come in and speak in a strange language, and I realized it was a boy, so I unlocked my door and came out to tell him to go away. And I saw a pair of great yellow eyes, and then-“ she pauses for dramatic effect- “I died.”

“Maybe it was a password,” Neville suggests. “Maybe that’s how you get into the Chamber!”

Ron punches Neville in the arm. “That’s brilliant, mate!” 

“Myrtle,” Neville says, turning back to her, “do you remember what he said?”

Myrtle laughs. “Of course,” she says, her voice going a bit odd. “I’ve always remembered. All anyone ever had to do was ask.” And with that she lets out an odd, grating hissing sound. 

The boys jump, startled, as a sink behind them groans and squawks, moving to reveal a large pipe. Ron recovers first, dragging Neville over to the opening with determined eyes. “Ready, Neville?” he asks, popping open his compact. 

Neville swallows hard but nods firmly. “Ready.”

“Oh, Neville- just so you know, if you die down there, you can feel free to share my toilet,” Myrtle says. 

Neville blushes. “Thanks, Myrtle. I’m very glad you’re my friend.” 

He pops his own compact open and together, he and Ron descend down into the Chamber of Secrets. 


	3. Emergence

** backflow ** | noun

back•flow | \ˈbak-ˌflō\

Definition of backflow: an unwanted flowing back to the source

Ginny Weasley had no reason to tell her friend Tom about Harry Potter; after all, she’s never met him. Consequentially, this is not a trap. This is a birth, pure and simple. 

The thing about pouring your soul into someone else is, it’s a two-way street. You’ve opened a pipeline. Tom and Ginny, Ginny and Tom. By now they’re so mingled you could never pull them apart naturally. In another universe, a boy with a scar might have killed the parasite, let it die and rot around Ginny Weasley’s heart. She would still feel it, years later, but she would be herself. 

This is not that universe. 

“Ginny!” “Be careful! We can’t turn around!” The voices sound familiar, but she can’t remember who they belong to. 

‘It’s important,’ Ginny tells her, voice like the crackle of a fire. ‘You have to remember.’

“You’re too late,” says Tom, voice like a scalpel. “She’s dying.”

“Who the bloody hell are you?! What have you done to my sister?!”

Tom laughs. Ginny tells her, ‘You have to remember.’

“My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle.” She feels his hand move through the air with her wand, spelling out his name in sparking letters, then rearranging them: I Am Lord Voldemort. 

“I can’t read that! It’s backwards!”

“Be careful, Ron!”

Ron. 

Ronald Bilius Weasley. He complained about braiding her hair but he’d never said no once in their entire lives. He gave her his chocolate frog cards when he got duplicates. Half of the time he was a jerk and he almost always thought he was too good to hang out with his baby sister and he loved her. He was her brother and he loved her and she loved him, too. 

Bill burned brighter with adventure and passion than anyone else she’d ever seen. Charlie was the only one who’d ever caught her borrowing their broomsticks, and instead of getting mad he’d laughed and dared her to go higher. Percy let her sneak beets into his plate when Mum wasn’t looking. She fucking hated beets. Fred and George faced off two against the world with their only weapons being a sense of humor and sheer nerve. And Ginny…

Ginny Weasley was a fighter down to her toes. 

‘There,’ Ginny says. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’

“Avada Ke-“

She wakes up. 

She flexes her fingers. They were pale, longer and a bit thinner than they had used to be. Her hair fell over her shoulder, still red, but it was longer as well, stopping at just above her waist. There’s a silver and green Prefect badge pinned to her robes. 

She stands up. Ginny’s wand lays where Tom had stood, and she picks it up, twirling it in her fingers. Out of curiosity, she tries to cast a random spell- Wingardium Leviosa- on a rock. Not so much as a twitch. 

“Ginny?” Ron says hesitantly. “Are you alright?”

“Don’t move,” she tells them. Her voice is sharper now, too; if Tom’s was a scalpel, hers is a dagger. “Seriously. Don’t turn around.”

She approaches Ron and Neville softly- she’s taller than the both of them now- and, working instinctually, rolls up Ron’s sleeve. He startled and she grips down on his wrist with her right hand, using the left to write. As she drags her finger along his skin, ink blooms and forms a word: Obliviate.

Ron collapses. Neville grabs at him, fumbling the compact mirror in his hands, and keeps him from hitting his head on the wet stone floor. Moving quickly she lifts his sleeve and writes Obliviate on his skin as well. He, too, crumples. 

Straightening up she says, to no one in particular, “Well. This has been a very odd day.”


	4. Fade To Black

Sirius Black leans back against the wall of his cell and flips through the newspaper he borrowed off of the Minister when he’d visited on inspection. He’s missed doing the crosswords; he and James would collaborate on them over breakfast, James down and Sirius across-

The Dementor outside his cell drifts closer and Sirius shoves the recollections out of his mind. There’s so little left of his memories of Hogwarts, of James and Lily and Remus, that he’s learned to be careful with what’s left. 

A headline on the front page reads, “WEASLEY FAMILY OFFERS 700 GALLEON REWARD FOR INFORMATION ON MISSING DAUGHTER.” Apparently the father had won some sort of jackpot shortly after his daughter disappeared from Hogwarts- something to do with the Chamber of Secrets. Sirius scoffs. He and his friends had scoured the castle for the Chamber and never found it- 

He shakes his head, trying to throw off the cold feeling. Glancing at the photo included with the article, he sees the family of the missing girl. They’re a gaggle of redheads, the other six children all sons. The youngest has an oddly familiar-looking rat perched on his shoulder. As the picture moves Sirius catches sight of the rat’s foot. 

It’s missing a toe. The right index toe. 

“He’s at Hogwarts.”


End file.
